Monday

Mar. 1, 1999

Single Life Blues

by Baron Wormser

MONDAY 3/1

Poem: "Single Life Blues," by Baron Wormser, from When (Sarabande Books).

It's the birthday of poet RICHARD WILBUR, New York, 1921, our nation's poet laureate in 1987-88.

HOWARD NEMEROV, who followed Wilbur as the nation's poet laureate in 1988, was also born on this date, in New York, 1920.

It's the birthday in 1914, Oklahoma City, of RALPH ELLISON, best known for his first and only novel, Invisible Man (1952), a story of a young black man who leaves the South for New York to join the civil rights movement.

It's the anniversary of the 1875 CIVIL RIGHTS ACT, one of the first civil rights acts which guaranteed blacks the right to use public accommodations, but it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1883.

It was on this day in 1780 that PENNSYLVANIA became the first U.S. state to ABOLISH SLAVERY.

It was on this day in 1692 that Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne and a servant girl named Tituba were arrested for the practice of WITCHCRAFT in Salem, Massachusetts, beginning the SALEM WITCH TRIALS.

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

«

»

  • “Writers end up writing stories—or rather, stories' shadows—and they're grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough” —Joy Williams
  • “I want to live other lives. I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances.” —Anne Tyler
  • “Writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig” —Stephen Greenblatt
  • “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • “Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.” —John Edgar Wideman
  • “In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.” —Denise Levertov
  • “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Let's face it, writing is hell.” —William Styron
  • “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” —Thomas Mann
  • “Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials.” —Paul Rudnick
  • “Writing is a failure. Writing is not only useless, it's spoiled paper.” —Padget Powell
  • “Writing is very hard work and knowing what you're doing the whole time.” —Shelby Foote
  • “I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.” —William Carlos Williams
  • “Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.” —Iris Murdoch
  • “The less conscious one is of being ‘a writer,’ the better the writing.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is…that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is my dharma.” —Raja Rao
  • “Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.” —Anthony Powell
  • “I think writing is, by definition, an optimistic act.” —Michael Cunningham
Current Faves - Learn more about poets featured frequently on the show